About Our Youth Hostels

Welcome to the Samesun Nation!

We are an international bunch of passionate travellers connected through the past 22 years of creating incredible experiences across Canada & USA. From the first meeting in a dorm room, to marriages & babies, our Samesun family keeps growing…. and now you can be a part of it too! Today we have youth hostels in Vancouver, LA, Montreal, Banff, and Kelowna.

We believe in bringing the world together through travel. Travel unites us and expands our experiences of this big wide world. We hope that through learning about other countries, cultures and customs, our guests will have a deeper appreciation for this magnificent playground we call Earth. Our social youth hostels are perfect for the solo traveler with hostel activities that connect you with other backpackers and connect you with our amazing destinations.

Samesun Manifesto

“Samesun nurtures a global community through our travel and

hostel network. We value kindness, inclusion and caring for the planet.

We aim to create inspiring experiences so that you will also realize

that small steps can make a big impact.”

Samesun is a company by backpackers for backpackers that operates on the West Coast of North America. We currently operate seven hostels, from large cities such as Los Angeles and Vancouver, to smaller mountain properties in Banff. We put an emphasis on social travel, as this is what makes a trip. It’s not the photos of the monuments that you take that create stories, it is the unexpected adventures, mishaps and evenings on the town with new friends that make a trip. We encourage people to put down their phones and talk with the person across from them at one of our Beaver bars. We organize daily activities at all of our hostels. And of course we promise to deliver, safe, clean and friendly accommodation. But we want you to leave our hostels with experiences and a love for the city that you are visiting more than anything. We want to help you see the world through travelers eyes.

The Samesun we know today began in 1995 as the dream child of Craig Kelley and Jeff Gusdal, fresh off their own backpacker travels through Australia, New Zealand and Europe. Craig and Jeff had experienced the highs and lows of being backpackers and wanted to bring the benefits of economical hostel style accommodation to travelers in their home country of Canada. Realizing that Canada lacked the same network of hostels they had experienced abroad, Craig and Jeff opened the first Samesun hostel on Kelowna’s Bernard Avenue with a modest 18 bed accommodation facility. Expansion happened quickly over the next several years with a custom built hostel in Kelowna, recently renovated hostels in Vancouver and Banff, Samesun’s first US hostels in Venice Beach, California and an upcoming East Coast location in Montreal in 2016.

Samesun has come a long way from the first 18 bed hostel to now offering hundreds of beds in 6 hostels across Canada and the U.S. Samesun’s affordable backpacker hostels in Vancouver, Montreal, Banff, Kelowna, and Venice Beach, LA. give the traveler an budget friendly way to explore Canada and the USA. And then there’s the addition of the Beaver bars in the Vancouver and Banff hostels, the best places for a backpacker to get cheap food and drinks in these cities.

The name Samesun refers to the idea that we

‘We all live under the same sun!’

It is important to the Samesun Team that we live by that fact by striving to leave the world better than we found it, and to create an environment where people are appreciated for themselves regardless of where they come from.

The family

As you travel between Venice Beach, Vancouver, Kelowna, Banff, and our newest hostel in Montreal you may see these friendly faces popping around our backpacker hostels. We pride ourselves on providing the most fun & enjoyable hostelling experience, and as travelers ourselves, we understand what is important. Many of our management team have dedicated their lives to traveling, exploring new corners of the world, meeting fellow like-minded adventurers & bringing that energy back into the Samesun hostels in Canada. The amazing experiences you get when heading outside your comfort zone and visiting places you’d never been before are shared between our staff and our guests. It’s all for the love of traveling! We get it!

If you’re interested in what it takes to run a hostel and who the crazy cats are…. introducing the Samesun team!

Craig Kelley

from Wetaskiwin, Alberta

Position: El Presidente

What is your best traveling experience? That’s impossible to peg down to one memory… a bad travel day still beats a good day doing anything else!

What do you love about hostels? People are generally chilled out and enjoying where they are and what they’re doing, same goes for our staff. You don’t often see depressed faces hanging around a hostel, everybody is young or young at heart and enjoying life. It makes one feel good to be around and definitely beats going out and getting a real job.

What do you never travel without? For better or worse, my iPhone (although I also know when to leave it behind and make new friends and undocumented memories).

Pete Edwards

from Victoria, Canada

Position: I’m generally just kept around for my sport talking abilities, while also loitering around the Vancouver location. I check in at a lot of airports.

What is your best traveling experience?Ending up on the slow boat to Zanzibar and realizing that the soccer game happened to be the Vancouver Whitecaps playing the Tanzania Lions. They all had a good laugh at the lone white guy cheering for his home team. The boat was pretty slow, pretty sure I saw people swimming past it.

What do you love about hostels?That it’s normal to be instant best friends over a beer with the person you just met in your dorm. Travel is the common denominator.

What do you never travel without?The will and desire to get outside of your comfort zone. And noise cancelling headphones.

Leni Koen

from Planet Earth – World Citizen

Position: Creative Director

What is your best traveling experience? Planning a 10 month solo backpacking adventure from Vancouver to Peru – and finding myself still in Vancouver over 8 years later (thanks to Samesun Backpackers!) Travel is life!

What do you love about hostels? The buzz of so many different energies makes it always an exciting place.

What do you never travel without? A smile – it’s the universal language that brings all people together. My smile gets bigger when there are hiking boots (so I usually pack those too).

Tim Charter

from St. Albert, Alberta

Position: Vice President & GM Samesun Vancouver

What is your best traveling experience? Chartering a sailboat to sail from Roatan Honduras to Caye Caulker Belize. Crystal blue waters, all inclusive rum and lobster, a dolphin pod following the boat, and no other vessel for miles. We loved our trip so much my wife and I named our son Roatan.

What do you love about hostels? The people, the people, the people. Everyone is on vacation and loving life!

What do you never travel without? My family, unless my wife and I need a break from our son.

Sara Booth

from Vancouver, BC

Position: Venice Beach GM

What is your best traveling experience?Arriving in Brussels for Belgian Independence Day, unknowingly my two sisters and I set off on the self-guided walking tour. Fueled by absinthe and salami, we acquired an entourage and marched around the quite historic city for hours. And one point there was a baby goat, which was possibly the best part.

What do love about hostels?The unlimited adventures, friendships & possibilities that happen when travelers get together in hostels.

What do you never travel without? Music and no excessive luggage.

Hannah Woods

from Sydney, Australia

Position: Roving Hostel & Bar Manager

What is your best traveling experience? Road tripping across Australia with my big brother after I had just turned 18. We got to see some pretty quirky small Aussie towns and met some interesting characters. This is the trip that inspired many other adventures and was also the first time I ever experienced hostel life!

What do you love about hostels? The endless shenanigans that can be had and the best of friends that can be made.

What do you never travel without? a camera

Environmental statement

Our Green Hostels and the Environment

Samesun Backpackers strives to operate environmentally friendly hostels because we understand the impact travel and tourism can have on the environment. Earth is our home and we want everyone to be able to explore & enjoy it. The incredible planet that we live on has become burdened by overuse and pollution. The future rests in our collective hands and Samesun wants to do our part to ensure a healthy planet for all to share. We are committed to improving our business practices to become more environmentally and socially responsible.

Here are a few ways we have improved our operational procedures to reduce our footprint and help spread our environmental & social message to our international guests:

Cleaning products

Samesun Backpackers in Vancouver, Venice Beach, Banff and Kelowna have switched from chemical based cleaners to natural, environmentally friendly products. The products used in our hostels are from Lotus Pro and use three natural oxygen atoms to oxidize bacteria and convert it safely back into oxygen. This technology has been safely used for water treatment, food sterilization and medical therapies for its remarkable anti-viral and anti-fungal properties as well as being fully approved by Canadian and US Health Departments. This reduces harmful chemicals and bleaches from going into our waterways whilst improving the sanitation in our establishments.

Recycling

Our hostels are constantly reviewing and improving our recycling procedures to reduce landfill waste and help promote reuse and recycling. All plastic, glass, tin, cardboard and paper are properly sorted and sent to specific local companies for recycling. All glass bottles and tin cans used in The Beaver Bars and Restaurants in Vancouver and Banff are recycled.

Through recycling, we can eliminate the first two stages of production: extracting and refining raw materials, and saving on overall energy consumption and CO2 omissions used to create plastic, glass or paper items in the future.

Composting

Within the last 12 months Samesun Backpackers have seen an opportunity to improve our recycling options to include composting food scraps in our Canadian locations. Encouraged by the City of Vancouver’s Greenest City 2020 initiative, Samesun Vancouver became one of the first businesses downtown to start their composting program. Samesun hostels in Banff, Kelowna and Vancouver as well as The Beaver Restaurants now have successful composting programs for food scraps, laundry lint, paper towels and more. Clear signage in our hostels help to explain to guests the importance of composting.

Lost property donations

With hundreds of backpackers coming through our hostels every week we have a surplus of clothing that gets left behind. Whether an item has been misplaced or just won’t fit into a stuffed suitcase, Samesun will catalogue it for three months before donating it to a local charity. Some charities in Vancouver that we donate clothes to are Big Brother, D.T.E.S. Women’s Shelters, and The Gathering Place.

Energy saving light bulbs

All Samesun hostels have or are in the process of changing to energy saving light bulbs. Energy saving light bulbs use one-fifth to one-third less electricity of standard bulbs and last eight to fifteen times longer as well.

Solar panels

Samesun Kelowna has roof-mounted solar panels which are used to heat the water at the hostel. This saves on using fossil fuel power and helps promote renewable energy.

Educating our guests

Samesun Backpackers provide clearly labeled and easily accessed recycling and composting facilities that ask our guests to help us help the planet. This bold signage with environmental information can help to educate our guests on the important responsibilities we all share for our collective future. We hope our guests will think about their own impact and take this responsibility into other aspects of their lives.

Environmentally responsible hostel activities

Samesun Backpackers offer hostel activities for our guests, which help them to meet other travelers and explore the amazing regions around western Canada and the USA. Our hostel activities are always focused on low foot print events using public transport, walking or cycling to get around. We encourage our guests to car pool or use public transit as much as possible to reduce the impact of travel.

Charitable donations

Samesun Backpackers is committed to engaging in charitable causes such as Movember, Bikinis for Breast Cancer and other events throughout the year. Our total donations per year exceed $1000 and this year we have made a $200 donation to A.L.S. as part of the ice bucket challenge. However, we didn’t want to waste fresh water….. see what we did here.